Research Seed Grants seek to support convergent research teams who are focused on sustainability and associated solutions. Seed Grant recipients span a variety of disciplines and work to crucially enhance sustainability education and research, as well as further Pitt’s national recognition in sustainability and the visibility of sustainability research and education on campus.
Past Recipients
2024-25
- Nadine von Frankenberg, Computer Science
Stephen Lee, Computer Science
Daniel Mossé, Computer Science
Sustainable (Campus) Buildings through Sensing and Human-Building Interaction - Inhee Lee, Electrical & Computer Engineering
Ultra-Low-Power, Reliable Semiconductor Chip & System Design for Ecological Climate Change Studies with Small Animals - Paul Leu, Industrial Engineering
Pioneering Sustainable and Transparent Glass Formulations for Climate Resilience
2023-24
- Shanti Gamper Rabindran, Graduate School of Public & International Affairs
Tony Kerzmann, Mechanical Engineering & Materials Science
Deploying Solar Projects in Rural Southwestern Pennsylvania: Understanding and Securing Community Acceptance - Mohammad Masnadi, Chemical & Petroleum Engineering
Cellulosic Biomass Conversion via Liquid Metal Catalysis - Sachin Velankar, Chemical & Petroleum Engineering
Thermal Desalination Process Based on Hydrate Crystallization of Polyoxacyclobutane
2022-23
- Shanti Gamper-Rabindran, Graduate School of Public & International Affairs
Grant MacIntyre, Graduate School of Law
The Role of PA's Public Utility Commission in Efforts to Decarbonize Pennsylvania's Electricity Grid - Leanne Gilbertson, Civil & Environmental Engineering
Meng Wang, Civil & Environmental Engineering
Engineering Subcellular Bioreactors for Selective Metal Recovery as Metallic Particles
2020-21
- James McKone, Chemical & Petroleum Engineering
A Circular Chemical Industry: Closing the Anthropogenic Carbon Cycle with Biomimetic Reactors - Carla Ng, Civil & Environmental Engineering
Mapping the Landscape of Seafood in Pittsburgh Markets: Do Safe, Sustainable, and Accessible Meet? - Ravi Shankar, Industrial Engineering
Jorg Wiezorek, Mechanical Engineering & Materials Science - Upcycling of Machining Scrap via Mechano-Chemical Attribution Enhanced Hydride-Dehydride Processing for Sustainable Ti-Powder Fabrication
- Aleksander Stevanovic, Civil & Environmental Engineering
Optimization of Traffic Signals on Pitt's Campus Road Network to Reduce Fuel Consumption and Greenhouse Gas Emissions from Vehicular Traffic
2019-20
- Eric Beckman, Chemical & Petroleum Engineering
Giannis Mpourmpakis, Chemical & Petroleum Engineering
Robert Enick, Chemical & Petroleum Engineering
Götz Veser, Chemical & Petroleum Engineering
Chemical Recycling of Polyethylene to Ethylene - Sarah Haig, Civil & Environmental Engineering
Steven Sachs, Civil & Environmental Engineering
Towards Using Microbes for Sustainable Construction Materials: Feasibility Study*
*Jointly funded by MCSI and IRISE - Katherine Hornbostel, Mechanical Engineering & Materials Science
Investigating Flexible Piezoelectric Materials with Lower Water Pressures - Feng Xiong, Electrical & Computer Engineering
Amplifying the Efficiency of Tungsten Disulfide Thermoelectric Devices
2018-19
- Daniel Bain, Geology & Environmental Science
Jeremy Weber, Graduate School of Public & International Affairs
The Local Cost of Abandoned Oil and Gas Wells - Matthew Barry, Mechanical Engineering & Materials Science
Case Study of the Application of a Novel Integrated Thermoelectric Device Applied to the Waste Heat Recovery of Fleet Vehicles - Melissa Bilec, Civil & Environmental Engineering
Life Cycle Assessment Integration for High-Performance Building Design - Jingtong Hu, Electrical & Computer Engineering
Hao Sun, Civil & Environmental Engineering - Enable Data-Driven Quantitative Assessment of Building Resilience and Sustainability with Self-Powered Sensors
- Peng Liu, Chemistry
Computational Methods to Design Efficient and Sustainable Chemical Catalysts
2017-18
- Mostafa Bedewy, Industrial Engineering
Protein Lithography: A Sustainable Technology for Sub-5-nm Nanomanufacturing - Markus Chmielus, Mechanical Engineering & Materials Science
High Efficiency of Refrigeration and Cooling through Additive Manufactured Magnetocaloric Devices - John Keith, Chemical & Petroleum Engineering
Toward Machine Learning Blueprints for Greener Chelants - Carla Ng, Civil & Environmental Engineering
David Sanchez, Civil & Environmental Engineering
H2P: Hydroponics to Pyrolysis: An Enclosed System for the Phytoremediation and Destruction of Perfectly Persistent Emerging Contaminants in Our Water
2016-17
- Daniel Bain, Geology & Environmental Science
Emily Elliott, Geology & Environmental Science
David Sanchez, Civil & Environmental Engineering
Brian Thomas, Geology & Environmental Science
Student-Based Observations of Soil Moisture to Quantify Dynamics at the Intersection of Natural and Built Environments - Graham Beattie, Economics
Andrea La Nauze, Economics
Learning about Sustainability: Social Learning via Solar Panel Adoption - William Stanchina, Electrical Engineering
β-Ga2O3 Nanoelectronics: A Path to Sustainable Semiconductor Technology for High-Efficiency Electricity Conversion from Renewables - Sachin Velankar, Chemical & Petroleum Engineering
Desalination of Sequestration and Release of Water in Poly Crystals - Götz Veser, Chemical & Petroleum Engineering
A Novel Process for Efficient, Decentralized Ammonia Synthesis: Towards Fertilizer Production with Drastically Reduced Environmental Footprint
2015-16
- Kyle Bibby, Civil & Environmental Engineering
Developing CrAssphage as a Marker of Human Fecal Pollution in the Environment - Melissa Bilec, Civil & Environmental Engineering
Indoor Air Impacts and Pittsburgh 2030 Energy District - Michael Blackhurst, University Center for Social & Urban Research
Randall Walsh, Economics
Green Infrastructure Implementation Deepening Interdisciplinary at the University of Pittsburgh - Jane Cloughtery, Graduate School of Public Health
Emily Elliott, Geology & Environmental Science
Quantifying Reductions in Diesel-Related Air Pollution Exposures across Downtown Pittsburgh - Alex Jones, Electrical & Computer Engineering
SHIELD: Sustainable, Holistic Infrastructure for Enabling Life-Cycle-Aware Detectors - Vikas Khanna, Civil & Environmental Engineering
Managing the Water-Energy Nexus for Shale Gas Production—Connecting Life Cycle Assessment with Process Systems Engineering - Thomas McDermott, Electrical & Computer Engineering
Measuring the Effect of Grid Voltage on Building Energy Labs